EA rejection of Alice sequel marks end of American McGee’s game dev career
Game Developer
APRIL 10, 2023
With his Alice: Asylum pitch rejected by Electronic Arts, game designer American McGee is leaving the game industry entirely behind.
Art Dev Game Design 
Solo dev Esteban Hernandez spent 7 years on Creo God Simulator: “I’ve learned perseverance”
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 5, 2025
. “I try my best to accept that I may not be the most talented or brilliant game developer in the world, but that I am capable of making something fun and beautiful.” Years ago, I became a solo developer initially because I wanted to make games, plain and simple. ” Why did you become a solo developer?
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Solo dev Vladyslav Pidiashenko “I hope IHAS will inspire players to better their lives”
PreMortem.Games
OCTOBER 30, 2024
After finishing IHAS, I will start to build a strong team to work on games that are beyond my scope a solo dev.” I’ve been working on a game for close to 3 years at this point and the whole idea of IHAS has transpired through these years of development. How did you get the idea for IHAS? How do you deal with that? “
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Board Game Designer vs. Developer vs. Publisher
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 17, 2018
The simple fact is that there are a lot of distinct tasks that have to be handled to turn a game from an idea into reality. This is why I urge each new board game designer to share the workload , delegating tasks to a team instead of doing them all alone. Need help on your board game? Designers make the game’s soul.
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Art for Art’s Sake…Sometimes It’s Not Just Business
Brand Game Development
JULY 14, 2017
Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. I talk a lot about the business side of board game creation. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. No, no, no.
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4 Lessons from Santorini for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 14, 2019
Santorini is a fantastic board game that came out about two years ago. In its heart, it’s an abstract strategy game that could have come from antiquity. It has been given the modern board game polish, though, with adorably cutesy art of Greek gods, and an incredibly photogenic set of stackable plastic components.
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4 Lessons from Azul for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 18, 2019
You don’t need incredible art to make a gorgeous game. Art is one of the key selling points of modern hobby board games. This little chestnut has been upheld as one of the key success factors in modern board game Kickstarter campaigns, including on this very blog. This is truly remarkable.
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Make a Board Game in 28 Days: A Challenge by Brandon the Game Dev
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 1, 2021
Today, I have a challenge for you as a board game designer. I want to see you make a board game in 28 days. That’s why I’ve provided a 28-day game design challenge for you. This 28-day challenge is intended to give you the structure needed to get into the habit of board game design.
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3 Signs It’s Time to Quit Working a Board Game Design Idea
Brand Game Development
MARCH 29, 2021
You have to block off time for your creativity to flow, do the hard work, and take tough feedback to make the best game you can. I also think that if you’re brand new to board game design, it’s worth pushing a small project all the way through its full lifecycle from start to finish. All of this means trying hard!
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4 Lessons from Dinosaur Island for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
OCTOBER 14, 2019
Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. That entails theme, components, and art. While the gameplay is certainly good in its own right, I believe it’s the aesthetic of the game that led to its popularity and, as such, the lessons in this post are dedicated to analyzing that aesthetic.
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A follow up to your answer about veilguard (was really hoping you would touch on that one). Why do game companies that have a “bad” release always seem to start from the bottom of the pyramid when it comes to restructuring and recouping losses? Why fire low level devs who did their best with what they had, when the companies have people in senior positions making hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more) that they could just cut from? Why do the trenches always get the punishment first?
Ask a Game Dev
FEBRUARY 3, 2025
The next factor is that each major experience level up a dev attains tends to be a geometric difference in productivity. [ A large task that would take a junior dev two months to complete might take a mid-level dev one month and a senior dev only a week or two ].
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20 New Year’s Resolutions for Board Game Devs in 2020
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 30, 2019
Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. With that in mind, I want to help you come up with some New Year’s Resolutions of your own, ones specifically related to board game design. Play-test with game designers. Let’s say you’ve made light games.
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10 Elements of Good Game Design
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 17, 2020
If you want your game to be great, it can’t simply be a technical masterpiece. This is the art for Spectrum in War Co., is the art. By using my own work as an example, I hope you can read their original write-up with a concrete context and use their lessons to make an incredible game of your own. BONUS: A narrative.
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New game announcement: "Tryhard" + "A Sportslike Manifesto"
Radiator Blog
FEBRUARY 10, 2025
Death is usually (a) game over, (b) rare, or (c) strongly penalized. This is where sports have solved a major game design problem: in most sports, defeated players do not die. Yet I feel that the "basic theory" of most sports is still a pretty unexplored domain by the big sports game studios. (
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4 Lessons from Paladins of the West Kingdom for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 11, 2019
Then they create a game that meets those demands, in short, assuring product-market fit. If you’re a board game designer looking to make a financially successful game, one good place to start is by researching the market. Many game designers see theme as having two primary objectives. Draw players in.
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Top 7 Game Dev Myths Explored
DameDev.tv
DECEMBER 16, 2022
as we explore the top 7 game dev myths Laurie (Avocado Fire) joins Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* to discuss these 7 game dev myths and address any concerns that you have. He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's
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Gerel: Against The Corvus Empire - a pixel art video game by CGS grads
CG Spectrum
NOVEMBER 24, 2022
Through this unique online network, Alan connected with Advanced Concept Art Course graduate Dogyeong (Do) Lee and Game Design Course graduate Alexios Vasilakis who both joined the Overwrite Interactive team. About Overwrite Interactive's global game dev team & their roles. Dogyeong L.
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Double Fine PsychOdyssey recaps / viewing guide, episodes 01-17
Radiator Blog
MARCH 16, 2023
Last month, game industry documentary makers 2 Player Productions debuted a massive 32-part YouTube game dev doc series Double Fine PsychOdyssey , chronicling the development of Psychonauts 2 from its earliest glimmers of pre-production in 2015 to its final release in 2021.
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Timing is Everything in Board Game Development
Brand Game Development
JUNE 23, 2017
Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. He created all 300 of the original pieces of art in my first game, War Co. , Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.
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Summer 2025 Game Development Student Internship Roundup, Part 2
Ask a Game Dev
NOVEMBER 14, 2024
Associate Development Manager Co-op/Internship - Summer 2025 (Sports FC QV) Game Product Manager Intern (Summer 2025) Music Intern EA Sports FC Franchise Activation Intern Associate Character Artist Intern Client Engineer Intern Visual Effects Co-Op Associate Environment Artist Co-Op (Summer 2025) Game Design Intern (Summer 2025) Game Design Co-Op (..)
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How To Draw Pixel Art
DameDev.tv
NOVEMBER 21, 2022
Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* are joined by Reece Geofroy to talk all things pixel art and how to get good at it. You can also check out Reece’s pixel art game Monster Tribe on Steam. He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's
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UFO50, the Only Game You'll Ever Need
The Bottom Feeder
NOVEMBER 1, 2024
(As of this writing, I've tried all the games, with 8 wins and 2 cherries.) UFO50 was developed by six indie devs over seven years. To be clear, I think this game is a monument, a true accomplishment and a celebration of the art form. Porgy is the most controversial game in the bundle. It was a gigantic effort.
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Solo dev Pat Naoum of the handpainted The Master’s Pupil: “Creativity is a tool”
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 13, 2023
I went through a Bachelor of Creative Arts, and then through Film School, all looking for bigger and better art forms. Painting or art I could work on everyday, but I felt it wasn’t broad enough. Making games is different to making anything else. Pat Naoum: “Game development takes so long!”
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Korean indie dev Funnylocks “We made Unstoppable for a global audience”
PreMortem.Games
JANUARY 29, 2024
During that time he crossed paths with Cho Si-wook , now the lead game designer at Funnylocks Game Studio. Si-wooks’s deep passion for game development inspired Hee-sang to take a leap of faith. Leveraging his accumulated experience, I decided to create a game company dedicated to making innovative games”, he says.
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Out Now • Solo dev Pat Naoum of the handpainted The Master’s Pupil: “Creativity is a tool”
PreMortem.Games
AUGUST 9, 2023
I went through a Bachelor of Creative Arts, and then through Film School, all looking for bigger and better art forms. Painting or art I could work on everyday, but I felt it wasn’t broad enough. Making games is different to making anything else. Pat Naoum: “Game development takes so long!”
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Solo dev ansdor loves his total creative control: “I don’t like too much planning”
PreMortem.Games
JUNE 20, 2023
I wouldn’t feel comfortable working on a game if I had to just follow someone else’s ideas. I also like not having to convince other people, especially management, about a game design decision or artistic choice. Solo developed games have much more room to be experimental and weird, and I love that.
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Jussi Kemppainen is exploring AI-assisted game development with Echoes of Somewhere
PreMortem.Games
AUGUST 30, 2023
AI affects game design The project’s trajectory shifted with the integration of AI tools. “To produce a point and click game, and to document the creation of a partly AI-generated game.” are answered in his regularly updated dev blog. It became a public AI research project.
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Using AI To Generate Game Art with Grant Abbitt
DameDev.tv
OCTOBER 28, 2022
Our Blender guru Grant Abbitt joins Industry veterans Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* to talk about generating AI Game Art, why you might want to use it and much more. Find out more about the fascinating world of AI art. He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's
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5 Lessons I Learned at a Play-Testing Convention (Protospiel Atlanta)
Brand Game Development
OCTOBER 27, 2017
Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Last Saturday and Sunday, I attended my first board gaming convention – Protospiel in Atlanta. Prototypes ranged from paper-and-pencil to full-on Game Crafter $100+ sets. Click here.
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The Emergent Design of Scholar of the Arcane Arts
Game Wisdom
JULY 2, 2023
The Emergent Design of Scholar of the Arcane Arts Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" For this developer interview on the Perceptive Podcast, I spoke with Endo who for their first indie dev game is working on Scholar of the Arcane Arts, a game that combines roguelike and emergent design.
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CHIEF PERKS OF CHOOSING 2D ART OUTSOURCING SERVICES
Moonmana
AUGUST 11, 2022
It is fair to say that any video game is a work of art. It requires game developers and designers to put a good deal of time and effort into delivering 2D concept art for a game. . Why you should consider 2D art outsourcing services. Opting for 2D game art outsourcing is the right solution.
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How to Find an Audience for Your Board Game & Make Them Happy
Brand Game Development
JUNE 8, 2020
Game Design Principles & Finding An Audience. At this point, many game designers will balk at the idea of doing market research. Game designers market without even meaning to when they design their games. Game designers tend to play a lot of games and interact with a lot of gamers.
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Final Factory by Never Games takes automation into space and adds bullet-hell
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 19, 2024
Things were getting serious three years later when Ryding decided to quit his job as a software engineer and work full time as a game developer. One of my close friends, Ches Denison, joined me working 5-10 hours a week as a playtester, game designer, and just a general jack-of-all-trades-guy.
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Under what umbrella does a camera for a 3D game tend to fall? That is, is it more of a game design concern, art direction concern, or engineering?
Ask a Game Dev
SEPTEMBER 11, 2024
It's primarily a feature handled by game design and engineering. The designers figure out how the camera needs to behave for the intended player experience and then the engineers figure out how to translate those behavior rules into code.
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5 Ways to Vet Your Board Game Before Launching a Kickstarter
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 15, 2021
Everybody wants to be a board game designer these days. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Board game design is super personal.
The Long Haul Project: Why Making Games Takes a Long Time
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 15, 2017
Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Early Game Design: If you’ve got tons of game designers and you work in shifts where 2-3 designers are working on a game 24/7, this will take several days.
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If you are an item designer - how long does it typically take to create a new item? Are the item designers involved in the art or is it just the effects/stats?
Ask a Game Dev
AUGUST 6, 2024
As with the vast majority of game design questions, the answer is "It depends". Imagine a game like Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. There are a significant number of items in the game and each one does something completely different. Design has some input on art for items but not a lot.
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A Crash Course in Board Game Development
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 9, 2019
Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. I tend to use the word game development as a catch-all term for everything that is associated with making a game – that includes game design, product development, marketing, promotion, Kickstarter/crowdfunding, fulfillment, and selling.
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5 Alternatives to Kickstarter for Your Board Game
Brand Game Development
MARCH 22, 2021
Many of you who read this blog know that I am self-publishing board game designer who uses Kickstarter as my platform of choice for funding the bulk of my projects. Certainly no surprise if you’ve read some of my articles like A Crash Course on Kickstarter for Board Games. Alternative 1: Go through a Publisher.
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How to Develop Inclusive Board Games
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 22, 2018
This article is the twelfth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Accessibility is a big issue in board gaming. It’s about making games for more gamers.
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How to Find an Artist for Your Board Game
Brand Game Development
JUNE 19, 2017
It’s no secret that one of the most critical parts of making a board game that will sell is making it gorgeous. Box art alone has the ability to multiply sales of an otherwise unassuming board game. Finding an artist is something that many first-time board game designers find very difficult to do.
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Theme vs. Mechanics
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 28, 2016
Once you’ve got mechanics to suit a core theme, you can develop the theme a little more through art, story, and graphic design. Game design starts with theme and ends with theme, but most of the time is spent in mechanics. The post Theme vs. Mechanics appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.
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What is a Tabletop Game? This is Everything that Goes into Making a Board Game.
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 19, 2018
If you get into this subset of the larger board game industry, you’re not selling cheap stuff to people filling shelf space. You’re selling community and friendship through well-crafted design. You’re selling art. Not art like artwork, but art like a beautifully made gift of your heart and soul. Game Design.
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The Forgotten City (2021) revisited
Radiator Blog
NOVEMBER 3, 2021
From a game dev perspective, it's been fascinating to play. In this post, I compare and contrast the original and this modern remake from a dev / design perspective. The game plays with this a little: there's a treasure door that opens only during the fail state. (A This community doesn't care about art or theater.
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